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Thursday, 10 January 2013

GOVT MINISTERS WHO GAMBLE FACE SACK

Cabinet ministers, public servants and MPs who go to casinos face the sack,
the Swaziland Government’s official spokesperson, Percy Simelane said.

He said there was a law specifically banning public
servants from gambling and if they were found in casinos they ‘will face the
full wrath of the law’.

The public servants are covered by the Casino Act No.53
of 1963 – a law from the days before Swaziland became independent from colonial
rule.

Simelane was reacting to a claim from the Times of Swazilandnewspaper that ‘two
cabinet ministers’, a ‘number of’ members of the Swazi Parliament and had been
spotted ‘numerous times at gaming houses’. There were also ‘many civil servants who are avid gamblers’, it
reported.

Simelane told the newspaper, they would all be fired if
found gambling. He said government leaders were expected to lead by example
through adhering to all the laws of the kingdom.

The Casino Act states, ‘A public officer who participates
in the playing of a game in a gaming room or a casino shall be guilty of an
offence.’

The Times
reported Simelane saying, ‘No one follows civil servants around to check
whether they adhere to the Casino Act or not, but if they are caught, they will
face the full wrath of the law.’

This is the second time in a month Swaziland has been at
the centre of controversy over laws dating from before independence. Before
Christmas the police warned women they would be arrested if they wore
mini-skirts, under a law dating from 1889.

After an international outcry, Simelane issued a statement
saying that Swaziland’s Constitution of 2005 overruled this law, citing a
women’s right to choose to wear what they wished.

Simelane might yet come unstuck on gambling. S14 of the
2005 Constitution guarantees an individual’s freedom of peaceful association
and movement. S20 states people cannot be discriminated against on the grounds
of their social standing.